Barack Obama is the kind of guy who likes to do things by inches, he's the kind of guy who likes to build consensus and compromise.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.

Original thinking is the hardest thing you can try to do or that you can do, but it is also the most rewarding. Focus on your personal growth and development

My first year in the big leagues, I made $17,000. It was easy to go out and get another $17,000 relief pitcher. I never worried about innings or pitches. I just pitched.

They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women.

How right- how incredibly, utterly right- and how impossible!

In my life I do a lot of things but I never forget my training.

The night I announced I was getting married, Daddy paced for hours on the porch.

The doctor brushed past her and gestured at the holographic image that jutted from the netscreen. "Let me tell you what is peculiar about it" "I'd say 36.28 percent of it is pretty peculiar

We're never gonna get rid of crazy people. They've been around for thousands of years - they'll continue to be around; they'll continue to do horrible things.

Punk, I see you as a hypocritical, manipulative waste of skin.